Valverde suffers but strengthens lead, Cunego wins

Alejandro Valverde came close to cracking on the 2009 Vuelta a Espana’s third summit finish on stage 14, but finally recovered to strengthen his overall lead.

The Caisse d’Epargne leader said afterwards that he is now 70 percent sure of taking his first ever major Tour, and it’s hard to disagree. Despite nearly cracking on the brutally steep final climb of La Pandera, the Spaniard fought back strongly after almost all his top rivals attacked him.

A move half-way up La Pandera begun by Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto), then followed up by Robert Gesink (Rabobank) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas) saw Valverde struggle and lose nearly 30 seconds in less than a kilometre. Then when Ezequiel Mosquera (Xacobeo-Galicia) and Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) also dropped the Spaniard, it looked as if Valverde was in serious trouble.

But the Caisse d’Epargne rider slowly regained ground and began catching and passing each of his rivals in turn. First to be caught and passed was Evans, then Basso, and finally Valverde reached Gesink with about two kilometres to go. Of the favourites, only Mosquera and Sanchez managed to stay out of Valverde’s clutches.

Valverde even dropped Gesink close to the line to increase his lead over the Dutchman by a few seconds, whilst Sanchez has moved up to third overall. Incredibly, in what had looked like the worse moment of the race so far for Valverde, the Valverde has come out on top again.

The overall classification will now probably remain stable until the race’s final four days, which include two mountainous stages and a 30 kilometre time trial in Toledo.

In all the fuss over Valverde and co, it almost went un-noticed that Italy’s Damiano Cunego (Lampre) had taken his second mountain top win of the Vuelta. Cunego formed part of a nine-rider day-long break and then soloed away for victory some 15 kilometres from the line.

The Italian admitted later that he had deliberately lost time on the stage to Sierra Nevada in order to have more chance of getting in a break, a tactic that paid off in full.